Former San Diego sheriff’s Deputy Aaron Russell began to question his decision to shoot a fleeing, unarmed man in the back “pretty much immediately” after the fatal encounter in 2020 outside the downtown San Diego Central Jail, he testified Tuesday in San Diego federal court.
Russell is on trial on federal civil rights charges for the shooting death of Nicholas Bils and faces up to life in prison if convicted. More than five years after the deadly shooting and more than three years after he pleaded guilty to a state charge of voluntary manslaughter, Russell took the stand for the first time in either case, offering the jury sometimes conflicting testimony about the killing and why he decided to shoot Bils.
Russell, 23 years old at the time of the shooting, told the jury during testimony that began last week and continued Tuesday that he thought Bils, 36, had a gun and was an immediate danger to officers and bystanders. However, a prosecutor read from transcripts and played audio from a previous interview with the FBI and prosecutors in which Russell acknowledged Bils posed no imminent threat.
Russell also offered conflicting testimony about why he holstered his gun almost immediately after firing the five shots and before Bils had fallen to the ground — a serious mistake for an officer who believes a suspect poses a deadly threat, according to the testimony of another officer during trial. At one point Russell testified that he holstered his weapon because “at (that) point I’m just in shock,” and he “didn’t have the thought” to keep his gun up. Later, he testified that he consciously holstered his weapon because he believed he’d neutralized the threat.
Prosecutors allege Russell shot Bils on May 1, 2020, simply because Bils was running away, arguing that none of the other law enforcement officers in the area even pulled out their guns, much less fired at Bils.
“The act of running was not why I shot Mr. Bils,” Russell testified Tuesday. He testified that it was “terribly painful” and “my head was spinning” when he realized Bils was dying and that he shot him because of a “mistaken perception … believing the handcuff was a gun.”
The fatal shooting happened on a Friday evening, a little more than a month into the COVID-19 pandemic, after two California State Park rangers arrested Bils at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, where he had gone to play with his dog in violation of COVID restrictions. Park rangers said Bils, who had been hitting balls to his dog using a golf putter, had briefly held up the club in a threatening manner while fleeing from the rangers.
The rangers drove Bils to the downtown Central Jail in two vehicles, but as they reached the facility, Bils slipped a hand out of his handcuffs, reached out a back window that was partially rolled down to allow airflow because of the pandemic and opened the door using the outside handle. Video played during trial showed that as Bils began to run away, the second ranger was trying to get out of his agency pickup truck. Bils pushed the truck’s door, not hard enough to close it on the ranger, and then sprinted north on Front Street.
Russell, who’d graduated from the San Diego Regional Training Academy barely a year earlier and was walking to work at the jail alongside another deputy, saw Bils escape from the opposite curb. He stepped into the street and fired five shots from close range without warning. At least four of the shots struck Bils, including one that pierced his back.
Prosecutor Michael Songer, special litigation counsel from the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, questioned Russell repeatedly Tuesday about why the deputy did not warn Bils that he was about to shoot or warn other of law enforcement in the area that he believed Bils was armed with a gun.
Russell testified that he didn’t have time to give either warning.
“You thought he was such a threat that you had to shoot him in the back without warning — but you immediately holstered your gun?” Songer asked incredulously.
Russell answered that he holstered his weapon — acknowledging that he did so in violation of his training — because he “perceived the threat was stopped” after he’d shot Bils.
Songer also coaxed Russell into testifying that even if Bils had been armed with a gun, that alone was not justification to shoot him in the back as he ran away.
Defense attorney Richard Pinckard elicited testimony from Russell about a “weapons board” at the jail that shows images of guns, knives, drugs and other items that jail deputies have found on recent arrestees that arresting officers failed to find during searches.
Russell testified that the “weapons board” informed his thinking on the day of the shooting — if the park rangers hadn’t handcuffed Bils properly, how could Russell be sure they’d searched him properly for weapons?
Russell was initially charged by county prosecutors with second-degree murder months after the shooting, becoming the first ever San Diego-area law enforcement officer to face a murder charge in the shooting death of a suspect. He was also the first officer in the state to face a murder charge under stricter use-of-force standards that went into effect just months before the shooting.
Because he eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser manslaughter charge, he never testified in that case. He was sentenced in February 2022 to one year in jail, though he actually ended up spending about five months in custody. A few months later, the county agreed to pay $8.1 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Bils’ family. Last year, a federal grand jury indicted Russell on the civil rights violations for which he’s now on trial.
Both Pinckard and Songer finished questioning Russell on Tuesday. Closing arguments and jury deliberations could begin as soon as Wednesday.
